Tag: speaking up

Life is NOT a box of chocolates! LIFE is not a bowl of cherries! Life is not a cart of lemons! With so many artificial Religious structure(s) often dilutes the spiritual experience and this usually keeps people from really experiencing God when they walk into a church facility…. It is 2012 – closing approaching 2013 and we ALL should learn to Live life with a purpose and live it full out………….

You cannot continue on the same path and arrive at a different destination. Make the choice to have your actions reflect your goals…Let today be the day you stop having conflict between your actions and your goals and finally align your greatest intent with your purposeful actions, creating a HOLY / Christ filled symphony serenading your success……..

Hopes and dreams stimulate our mind and feed our very soul. Nothing beats waking to a day we’ve never seen before. Chasing a dream we’ve never dreamed before. Finding our way through the woods to the clearing.

Nonetheless, Life without goals is like driving your car without knowing the destination. You know your goals so that you can plan to achieve those. If you don’t know you can’t be focused. Dreams and goals are 2 different things because what we want in life starts with a dream….a dream a desire of what we desire to have….to be….to obtain… but unless you put it into ACTION by making it A GOAL…. it will always “stay a dream” within the confines of your brain / mind! Dreams make us feel good because it can be relaxing and bring us peace on “how things can be” but like anything and everyuthing else… WORK has to be involved for us to attain things!

God wants us to grow and writing the vision is not enough…after you write the vision and make it plain …simplistic and practical – ACTION STEPS must follow! ( that is if you desire it to come to pass ) If God allows you to dream it then it is in reach for you to obtain it…. Do not expect God to be your Engine – Engine #9 Train that will come and pick up what you do not feel like doing! Your relationship with Christ is a team effort, so do not sit back and relax just because you know that He has the power..ability and know how to “do it all”…

Dreams and goals are something to live for, to look forward to. Without our dreams and goals, we wouldn’t have much to live for. Dreams keep our hearts alive, that’s the beauty…♥ Do not allow anyone or anything that “take that” part away from you! As individuals, we give up more of ourselves than we actually keep, so FIGHT to keep that part!

MAN OH MAN!!!! I was so excited when my son wanted to try something different this season…… WRESTLING! I thought that it would be a great experience for him as well as would really help get his weight down! Lo and behold, I forgot to take into account what type of “coaching style” I may run into… I was schocked, sad and disgusted with the coaching staff as well as the coaching style that was represented even on his first day!

I am thinking that it MUST be a black culture thing that SCREAMING at the kids and calling them NAME is a mentality where the coaches feel that will toughen them up for what is about to be next! Wow… is all that I could say when my son started wrestling last week on Monday..

I wanted to cry AFTER I witnessed this sad display of coaching……..I honestly wanted to fight the head coach before I left… It was just plain HORRID on how he talked to ALL of the kids…and the ages had ranged from like 5 to 16 years old before they were all broken into groups via age and weight class….

At first when I sat in the car just observing the parents…. kids….and coaching staff interaction… I MUST ADMIT that I said to myself.. hmmm.. baby I am not sure if I am going to like the structure of this organization, I can tell already! It did not matter to me how known this organization was known for wrestling and winning matches and even turning a beginning into a winner in a few months…

Yeah that may be the case and have some validity to it… but as a mother…. im seriously thinking.. ” at what costs ” are you trying to prune my son and other people’s kids into wrestlers? Are you even trying to get to know the kids to see if this is indeed something that they dont want to do…

Are you mature enough as a coach to talk to the parents and be honest with them and say.. Mom / Dad… I commend you for wanting to place your son in this particular sport…but maybe I dont think that this WRESTLING is for him… give your reasons why and let the parents make that choice etc….Geesh! Where is the koof these days??

However, what I had witnessed even with the first night…..that was indeed NOT THE MODE that these coaches were into…well let me not say ALL but there were about 6 coaches there and there were 2 that were sooo serious even on the first day…it was very VERY very alarming. Then the Wrestling head coach himself was about 5 feet 4 inches and seemed like he always had something to prove everytime he opened up his mouth….. He is the little man with the blue shirt and dreds….. yes that is him! ( refer to the photo below AFTER the next 2 paragraphs below )

He screamed at the kids…. called them names… told them they could go home if they did not like him… stated that if he saw their parents were not around and if they did a wrestling move incorrectly, that he would hit them in the head…. I blurted out not my son you wont…. I didnt care how I looked but that is another reason I feel why so many black male athletes are too aggressive… (especially in Football)

this type of behavior is accepted by these coaches in these black neighborhoods and some of the coaches never had any type of leadership position thus far in their lifetime ..so they indeed OVERLY react in a position of a coach….. ( especially football )

there were no pep talks… I talked to 2 of the other coaches expressing my concern on the lack of stretching that DID NOT TAKE PLACE before the coach started showing the kids all of these wrestling moves, stances and positions. So by now you can obviously tell that I surely was not pleased and ONLY signed my son up predicated on his OWN personal interest in wrestling and him asking me to find an organization so that he could play and see if he would like it etc… I ONLY signed him up for this organization bases off of their REPUTATION…. However, you see that “now days” a reputation does not hold too much weight any more… look at Penn State University… Joe Paterno was coach for 46 years and his legacy is left with him being FIRED!!!

Back to this rude and unbalanced Coach…..He called the kids names…. smacked one little boy in the head two times and when I thought I heard him call my son a name because he is a little overweight, I had to CALM MYSELF and have one of those “” WOO – SIGH MOMENTS “” because I wanted to make sure that I had heard what I did and not be assuming I heard something because I was soo judgemental ( and obviosuly rightfully so ) in the beginnig….

Lo and behold he indeed call my son a name pertaining to his weight and I spoke to one of the coaches about it and since there was only about 10 more minutes left in the FIRST and only practice that my son would be participating in with this organization …I waited until it was over to talk to my son and the manager of the organization.

Long story short… I asked my son how he felt when we got in the car ( WITH MY MIND ALREADY MADE UP THAT WE WERE NOT GOING BACK )….he said that he still wants to do wrestling but NOT with that man being the coach… I WAS INDEED happy and soooo very proud of my son realizing that the behavior that he saw was NOT normal at all….. My son plays baseball…. and there is no screaming and name calling… My son plays soccer…. and there is no disrespectful marks being said and no fear being put into him if he doesnt score a goal… My son plays the saxophone and the teacher does not make him sit out of a performance because he missed a practice… My son does Tae kwon do and the Grand Master does not scold him for not blocking the right way…. Parents dont speak up apparently…because alot of them complained over in the corner but I heard them say that he has been the coach for about 4 or 5 years and he is good at what he does! UMM >>News Flash.. he is good at the mechanics but NOT at the coaching.. meaning he is a horrid teacher…..

It is like a paralegal… they are more geared to study and dig for tons of research to help the lawyer to win his or her case…. The paralegal does the research…the mechanics …the dynamics of the job BUT the lawyer “presents the evidence” that the paralegal found… It takes a certain type of individual to work with kids…gain their respect..their ear etc.. BUT to gain those same things with parents… is something totally different… and I SAY SHAME TO THE PARENTS who complained about the verbal and semi physical abuse but year after year they continued to bring their OWN CHILD BACK TO THE CHAOS!

They all TALK to him and explain to him what could be done better and still congratulates him on the things that he is already doing right! Sad to say but they are all white coaches and the activities that he participates in are all located in white neighborhoods and we indeed live in an 85% white neighborhood. I AM NOT SAYING that ” white is right “….but my golly, they surely have some “perspectives that a great deal of blacks dont have ” which can help mold your child… uplift your family… etc…

I am venting of course.. but it is NOT ABOUT COLOR but it is about how a person is raised…what they are exposed to…what morals..values ..ethics and beliefs are PLANTED…. However, my black brothers and sisters STILL must get it together in more areas than I would like to admit… but TRUTH IS STILL TRUTH…regardless how it is presented.. Lord thank you for showing me how to raise MY SON!